Hinterthal is also very accessible - Salzburg airport is just over an hour by car from Hinterthal, while Munich is just over two hours away. Hiring a car is not essential - you can ski to and from the chalet - but it is useful if you want to explore the region, go to restaurants in neighbouring villages or try out the skiing in different resorts.

Hinterthal is a beautiful village at the end of the valley beyond Maria Alm with its impressive church spire and range of shops and supermarkets. The mountain range that flanks this valley is the Steinerne Meer ("rocky sea"), the beautiful limestone peaks dividing Bavaria from Austria. Hinterthal sits at an altitude of 1,000 metres between dramatic rocky peaks to the east and north - which rise up to the 2,941 metre Hochkoenig ("High King") mountain - and the ski slopes to the south and west. The village has a couple of ski shops and a ski school less than 100 metres from the house, a range of restaurants and bars and excellent apres ski and night life for all members of the family.

Our chalet is part of the Clubhotel Hinterthal, so a few metres from the front door there is an a la carte restaurant, a chilled bar and warm cafe at MareMare. MareMare offers delicious food in a warm, modern environment and, during the holiday seasons, the team is available to provide the following services to our guests: a la carte meals based on Mediterranean dishes and sharing plates; breakfast in the restaurant or pre-delivered to the chalet*; meals prepared and delivered to you for final preparation by yourselves in your own kitchen and dining facilities*; or meals or party-food prepared and served to you and your guests within the chalet - especially popular for the first night of your arrival!*

For the skiing holiday, this area offers some of the most reliable snowfall in the Alps, 150km of pistes for all levels of experience and plenty of safe off-piste skiing when the new snow falls. Hinterthal is in the Hochkoenig ski area which in turn is part of the massive Amade ski region with its 270 lifts and 866km of pistes. The lift pass for the Hochkoenig area of 4 inter-connnected villages covers the whole of the Amade region.   

The area is a paradise for ski tourers, low avalanche risk and few dangerous cliffs makes it a safe and peaceful activity. Hinterthal attracts a crowd of ski tourers every thursday evening for its weekly tour up to the mountain restaurant for dinner (head torches needed for the way down).

The Austrians love to invest in modern equipment: the lifts are all state of the art, high speed and high capacity so however you go down the slope you travel up the mountain with hardly any queues and in comfort - some chair lifts even have heated seats. In recent years high speed lifts completed a seamless, bus-less link between all the villages as well as adding wonderful new restaurants at the tops of the lifts. Almost all the old T-bar lifts have been replaced by chair and gondola lifts which are long, fast and comfortable. Another result of huge investment in recent years is that most of the pistes are covered by snow cannon and feeder reservoirs, ensuring good snow cover as soon as the weather turns cold.

The Amade region with well-known resorts like Schladming and Badgastein lies mainly to the east of Hinterthal, but there are also many world-famous resorts within a 30 minute drive to the west including world-cup hosting Saalbach/Hinterglemm, the Schmittenhohe at Zell am See and the all year round skiing on the glacier above Kaprun. We mention these resorts to whet your appetite, but the Hochkoenig region is so extensive that unless you stay the whole season we would be surprised if you did more than ski in and out of the chalet.

The Chalet on the Lake is right next to the nursery slope where the ski school meets, so the children (and other beginners) are never far from home. Also close to the house is a range of restaurants offering traditional Austrian and modern European cuisine as well as apres-ski bars and the late night AlmBar which is behind the house at the bottom of the nursery slope. The AlmBar is where both the youngsters and the not-so-young can socialise and dance late into or even through the night; it is close enough to the house to walk home without freezing en route but far enough away never to hear the eclectic music or the leaving revellers. For those who prefer to stay outdoors, Hinterthal has horse-drawn sleigh rides and tobogganing is available in Maria Alm and Dienten.

The house is at an altitude of just over 1,000m, by Austrian standards that's fairly high. Whoever tells you that Austrian villages are too low for good snow, doesn't know much about Europe's weather patterns. Recent years have seen fabulous snowfall in Austria with some of the deepest and best powder snow in Europe falling through to April; 2018/19  was a record year with almost 6 metres of snow at the top at the end of March.

After the snow has left the mountains, Hinterthal is a wonderful place for an active and healthy holiday. You will not find better walking, hiking, climbing, overnight stays in mountain top huts, tennis, golf, white water rafting and cycling (off and on-road) than is available either from the door or in the immediate area.  

For a cultural tour, Sound of Music tour or just a shopping tour, Salzburg is a beautiful city and is only an hour by car. The picturesque lake-side town of Zell am See with its boutiques and water sports on its large lake is less than 30 minutes away. Each of the local villages - Maria Alm, Dienten, Saalfelden - and Hinterthal itself offer restaurants and bars for refreshment after a long day's hiking and have regular village cultural and musical events.

There is a summer toboggan run at Saalfelden and a go-kart track at Leogang, both 15 minutes drive from Hinterthal. There are two golf courses in the area, one skirting the river to the north of Saalfelden and the other on the meadows at the foot of the granite peaks above Maria Alm. The clay tennis courts in Maria Alm are next to an outdoor swimming pool complex with volleyball and table tennis facilities. The lake at Zell has a full range of water sports from sailing to water-skiing, the river at Lofer provides white water of all levels. And for children and adults, Maria Alm has a wonderful tree-top adventure park.